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Spring 2020 Honors

June 30, 2020

It has been a challenging spring and we are extra proud of all our students who met milestones in 2020!

Congratulations to our online Spring 2020 Twinkle Grads!:

Congratulations to online Book Recital students!:


 








 

 

 

 

Congratulations to our Practice Challenge Champions!
100 POINTS ACHIEVED!
Pippa C, flute
Zadie L, flute
Chase L, violin
Cora T, violin
Emily M, violin
Jackson H, violin
Lila Jane H, violin
Suzanna A, violin
Tristan V, violin
Lisa S, cello
Maddie Y, cello
Sebby K, cello
Nora B, piano

200 POINTS ACHIEVED!
Emery C, violin
Remi W, violin
Francie L, cello
Ollie W, cello

Congratulations to our online Suzuki 2020 Festival Participants!:

Filed Under: Extracurricular, On practicing, Spotlight, Upcoming

Practice Challenge Winners!

March 13, 2019

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR STUDENTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS YEAR’S PRACTICING CHALLENGE! This year’s Penny Jars were heavier than ever!

Our total number of minutes for all participants = 31,188 minutes

Our Top 10 Practicers are listed below and any students who practiced a total of 325 minutes or more during the month of February should be on the look out for an invitation to a celebratory Pizza Party! In addition to improving our playing this month, we also managed to raise money for a good cause as we’ll be doubling the student pennies and donating to U.N.I.C.E.F.!

TOP 10 PRACTICERS of our 2019 CHALLENGE:
1) Katie R, cello

2) Lena N, violin

3) Maya F, cello

4) Colin C, violin -tie- Samson CW, cello

5) Suzanna A, violin

6) Frida CW, viola -tie- Sophie J-L, cello

7) Emily McCabe, violin

8) Elsa C, violin

9) Rayna t, violin

10) Sofia SM, cello

Filed Under: On practicing, Spotlight

Penny Challenge Results!

March 8, 2018

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR STUDENTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THIS YEAR’S PRACTICING CHALLENGE! This year’s Penny Jars were heavier than ever!

Our total number of minutes for all participants = 25,383 minutes

Our Top 10 Practicers are listed below and any students who practiced a total of 325 minutes or more during the month of February should be on the look out for an invitation to a celebratory Pizza Party! In addition to improving our playing this month, we also managed to raise money for a good cause as we’ll be quadrupling the student pennies and donating to U.N.I.C.E.F.!

TOP TEN PRACTICERS:

1) Lena N, violin (1710 minutes) *Student Penny Jar Winner*

2) Mia A, violin (1515 minutes)

3) Colin C, violin (1390 minutes)

4) Autumn R, cello (1280 minutes)

5) Maya F, cello (1205 minutes)

6) Hayato Z, violin (1182 minutes)

7) Katie R, cello (1116 minutes)

8) Irene G, violin (965 minutes)

9) Frida CW, viola (841 minutes)

10) Kai-Jin K-R, cello (689 minutes)

Filed Under: On practicing

Penny Challenge Winners!

March 6, 2017

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR STUDENTS WHO PARTICIPATED IN STRING FESTIVAL 2017!

We had several students submit practicing sheets for our Practicing Challenge as well! We were blown away by all the amazing practicing that took place this month which we measured in penny jars at our school. Our Top 10 Practicers are listed below and any students who practiced a total of 325 minutes or more during the month of February should be on the look out for an invitation to a celebratory Pizza Party! In addition to improving our playing this month, we also managed to raise money for a good cause as we’ll be quadrupling the student pennies and donating to U.N.I.C.E.F.!

TOP TEN PRACTICERS:

1) Hayato Z (1460 minutes) *Student Penny Jar Winner*

2) Ellis P (1370 minutes)

3) Maevon C (1350 minutes)

4) Mia A (1320 minutes)

5) Lena N (1220 minutes)

6) Lucy R (1135 minutes)

7) Isabella M (1067 minutes)

8) Evie B (1000 minutes)

9) Irene G – Autumn R (925 minutes)

10) Ada B (840 minutes)

Filed Under: On practicing, Spotlight

Practicing Penny Challenge!

February 29, 2016

Congratulations to all our students who participated in our annual String Festival!

We had several violin and cello students who submitted sheets for our Silver Music Practicing Penny Challenge! Students who turned in their sheets and practiced a total of 325 minutes during the month of February will be invited to a pizza party (invitations forthcoming!). We also had one violinist and one cellist winner of the pennies!

CELLO PENNY WINNER:
Ava K (918 minutes!)

Cello Runner-Up:
Kiran G (508 minutes!)

VIOLIN PENNY WINNER:
Hayato Z (1239 minutes!)

Violin Runner-Up:
Irene G (1230 minutes!)

All your hard-work and practice minutes paid off at the Festival. CONGRATULATIONS!

Filed Under: On practicing, Spotlight

2016 Practicing Champions!

January 8, 2016

Just a small sample of all the amazing practicing that took place over Winter Break!
IMG_1168IMG_1169

IMG_20160106_165156570 IMG_20160106_165208128 IMG_20160107_183421185 IMG_20160108_120233742IMG_20160111_144750617IMG_2029IMG_2030IMG_2718 (1)

If your child filled out a countdown worksheet, take a picture and send it to silvermusic@silvermusic.org! We’ll add it to our blog!

Filed Under: On practicing

Preparing for a recital is a lot like baking a cake!

December 8, 2015

In working with a Book 3 cello student recently, I realized that preparing for a recital is a lot like baking a cake!  Let me explain:

When you bake a cake, after you measure each ingredient and mix them together according to the recipe, it is time to bake the cake.  The cake may need to bake for about an hour, so you set your timer for 50 minutes and pop it in the oven.  When the timer rings after 50 minutes, you insert a toothpick or a fork into the middle of the cake, and it comes out a little sticky with batter—the cake still needs more time to bake!  You put the cake back in the oven and set the timer for 5 more minutes.  This time there is less sticking to the fork, but you can tell that the cake still needs more time as the fork is not totally clean.  At this point you are so excited for the cake to finally be done that you stay near the oven to take the cake out right when the buzzer goes off again after five more minutes.  This time the top of the cake is shiny and springy, and the fork comes out totally clean–the cake is DONE!

Even though you would love to dig in to the cake right away, it still needs to cool for a while and then finally be iced for an extra layer of scrumptiousness!

So how is baking a cake like preparing for a recital?  Well, after we learn all of the notes and bowings of a piece by heart, there is still a lot to work needed on the polishing of the piece, such as dynamics, phrasing, character, and beautiful tone.  It also takes a while for the piece to settle into your fingers and be really comfortable and fun to play.  While you are polishing this piece, you are most likely beginning to learn a new piece as well with new challenges to master.

While you are working on a piece, it is almost like you are baking it like a cake in the oven.  As it gets more and more comfortable to play, it is close to being baked through and almost ready to come out of the oven, or be performed for an audience.  Sometimes when you try to perform a piece that is not baked all the way through, some of it may fall apart or get mixed up, just like a cake may be too soft and runny on the inside if you take it out before it has baked the right amount of time.

One of my students has worked hard to learn a new Book 3 piece over the past few weeks and was eager to play it on a recital in place of the Book 2 review piece that we had decided would most likely be her recital piece. Even though she could play all of the notes correctly in the new piece, we could both tell that this piece needed more time to become totally “baked” with dynamics, phrasing, etc. for a great recital experience.  The Book 2 piece flowed right out of her with only one small hesitation.  She knew immediately that this piece was much more performance-ready for the coming week’s recital–it was fully baked and just needed a bit more icing to make it totally delicious!

There have been many times that my students have asked to play their newest piece on a recital, and I have almost always said they need to play a more comfortable review piece instead. The audience will enjoy hearing any piece that you play, that you can really play fluently and musically EVEN (and especially!) if it not your most advanced piece!  I always say that I would rather hear an absolutely beautiful Twinkle on a recital than a more difficult piece that is not polished and ready to play with joy and ease 🙂  And I myself would rather perform a piece I know very well, that is really in my fingers and in my head, than I piece I have just mastered.

Happy baking and playing!

 

Filed Under: On practicing

Jesse’s Review Chart

September 25, 2015

Perhaps the biggest thing that sets Suzuki training apart from “traditional” methods is the focus on review. As Shinichi Suzuki said, “ability is built on review”. While other methods use technical exercises and etude books to hone students’ skills, the Suzuki method allows students to build their ability through pieces of music. As students learn more and more pieces, though it can be tricky to keep all of that music under the fingers and in the mind and ear. And once a review pieces slip out of a student’s repertoire, it can be painful and time consuming to bring it back. One great way to make sure every review piece is played every week is by using a review schedule or chart. Below is a picture of our violin student Jesse’s review chart. We were inspired to see he keeps it with his music books and even had it at his lesson, and so allowed us to snap a picture!

photo (4)

Do you have a great way to keep review going? We’d love to hear it! (Or see it!)

Filed Under: On practicing

Dos and Don’ts for Parents

November 17, 2014

We really appreciated Sara Marie Brenner’s post, To Do or Not to Do: For Parents, the dos and don’ts of private music lessons. If you haven’t read it, you can check out the full article here. Below are some of our favorite points paraphrased and expanded on. Let us know what points really hit home with you!

How to support your child’s musical journey…

DO:

  • Make it clear that music lessons are a long-term process. Both you and your child should avoid framing this as an activity you are “trying out”. That would be like planting a seed in March and then just “trying out” gardening until May. Hang in there, and the fruit of your labors will come.
  • Focus on the quality of practice, not the quantity. Life is busy, kids’ attention spans are short—make sure to get the most out of each minute of practicing by putting the most effort possible in. See Less is More for more ideas for quality practice.
  • Be physically present when you are practicing with your child. The worst memories people (including professional musicians) usually have of their parents and practicing is being yelled corrections from an adjacent room. Make the time to literally be there for your child and the quality and tenor of practice will dramatically improve.
  • Put the Suzuki CD on every day! If this isn’t easy for you, investigate why and see if you can find a way to make it easier. Do you need to set up an in home stereo system? Upload the music to your phone? Put speakers in the kitchen? This can be the easiest part of practice, so it’s worth putting the time in to find a way to make it work. If you’ve listened to your CD a zillion times and your kid needs some variety, buy the CD that goes with the next few books and mix that in. For more on the power of listening, read here and here.
  • Be your child’s cheerleader. Music lessons are hard and music teachers can be demanding. Your most important role is to let your child know that you have unconditional love for them and unsurpassable belief in their potential.

DON’T:

  • Don’t threaten that you will stop lessons if they don’t practice. There are very few children (statistically insignificant) who have developed the ability to consistently carry through with long-term goals on their own. It is your job as a parent to help teach them this skill. There may come a time when your child truly doesn’t have an interest in playing their instrument any longer, but this is something that can best be determined with serious, compassionate conversations with your child and their teacher, not with threats.
  • Don’t correct your child during a lesson. It is very important to enforce the concept of “one teacher at a time” and respect the relationship between your child and their teacher. If you have a concern that was not addressed in the lesson, ask the teacher about it directly.
  • Don’t except your child to be grateful for your sacrifices. Gratitude for the ability to play and enjoy music will come much later, along with adult maturity—don’t expect it from anyone under the age of 18.

 

Filed Under: On practicing, Parenting

Breaking it down: Advice for the practice partner of an advancing student

October 27, 2014

As your child advances in the repertoire and in their ability, their pieces quickly get more and more complicated. Your role as a practice partner changes from a hands on helper to that of an advisor. Understanding practice as an exercise in problem solving and being able to offer your child some ideas on how to solve their challenges will help you increase the productivity of each practice session.

The key to productive and efficient practice is Unit Practice. Suzuki students begin their studies with unit practice—the rhythms that each student practices on single notes and open strings, “I like Chocolate Ice Cream”, etc., are “units” that are practiced separately for months, even after they have been strung together to build a student’s first Twinkle.

All pieces, no matter their length or level, are made up of such building blocks, and it is up to the advancing student (with help from the parent) to find the relevant units, take them out of the context of the piece, and practice them in a variety of creative ways to build ability and ease. Below are just a few ways that good practicers manipulate units. Your teachers are always happy to offer you more!

  • Building backwards
    • Most sections of a piece that your teacher assigns can be broken down even further when practicing. After finding the units that make up a section, pick the last one and master that, then attach the second to last unit, third to last, etc., so that as the student practices, they are constantly going from less familiar to more familiar and reinforcing the material they just learned.
    • e.g., take the triplets in the last line of Witches’ Dance and practice only the last three notes of the piece, then the last six, last nine, etc. (Word of warning to string players–make sure you whether you are on an up or down bow when you start in the middle of a passage!)
  • Using Rhythms to Promote Dexterity
    • Our fingers are not equal in strength and dexterity which can make playing fast passages evenly a struggle. One way to fix this is to play the passage with different rhythms in order to build speed and strength in to the fingers. Just make sure to always play the passage evenly right after!
    • e.g., for a group of four sixteenth notes, play long-short-long-short, then short-long-short-long, then evenly. This is “rhythm + opposite + straight”. The student can play an entire passage of sixteenth notes (maybe 2 or 3 lines) in this way.
  • Separate the hands
    • For string players, difficult passages often consist of a particularly tricky right hand technique, or left hand technique, or in very tricky passages, both at the same time! Practicing a difficult right hand technique on open strings, or a difficult left hand technique with slow, separate bows, is a great way to isolate and address challenges.
    • Pianists will also benefit from separating the hands to isolate and address the different challenges between right and left.

Undoubtedly your teachers have instructed you in these practice techniques for various passages, but as the pieces grow in length and difficulty, you and your child will benefit enormously from taking ownership of the process of devising practice strategies and putting them into effect. Besides from increasing your child’s ability, turning practicing into a critical thinking exercise may even give you the added benefit of a more engaged and enthusiastic practicer! Let us know how it goes, and we’d love to hear any other unit practicing tips that work well for your child.

Filed Under: On practicing

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